


a story in the fog

by sunshineinthestorm



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Tumblr Prompts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-04
Updated: 2016-01-25
Packaged: 2018-05-04 20:49:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 8,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5348072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunshineinthestorm/pseuds/sunshineinthestorm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I realized that I have a bunch of drabbles on my tumblr that people requested, so I figured I might as well post them all here. They're mostly Stydia with other pairings featured every once in a while.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. "Hey, I'm with you, okay? Always."

**Author's Note:**

> Non-Stydia pairings will be listed in the chapter titles. Also this fic's title is from "Strange Love" by Halsey.

When Lydia calls Stiles and he doesn’t answer, she loses her last shred of sanity. The voices send knives into her skull until she’s dragging her nails across her thighs just to stay tethered to reality, and her heart thuds faster than her pounding headache. 

 _Scream,_   _Lydia. Scream. SCREAM._  They beg and plead and shout and cajole until Lydia can’t take it any longer. She opens her mouth and—

“I’m here, Lydia!” Stiles shoves open her door with his shoulder and stumbles into her room, grabbing her wrists before she can gouge more scratches into her skin. “You’re going to be fine. You don’t have to listen to them, okay? You’ve got me, so don’t give up. Okay? Just focus on me.”

“Someone’s… someone’s going to die, Stiles,” she gasps, shaking with the effort not to scream. “I can’t—”

“They don’t have to die,” Stiles promises. “Where’s the danger? I’ll call Scott, okay? They don’t have to die.”

“The… the hospital. They’re after someone who was just admitted.” She clutches her skull. “ _Stiles_.”

“They’re going to be fine, Lyds, I promise.” He picks up her phone and flicks to her favorites with practiced ease. “Scott, this is Stiles. Call the rest of the pack and get to the hospital ASAP. Lydia says someone there is in trouble. We’ll catch up when we can.” 

He hangs up without another word—they’ve done this too many times to offer false sentiments of safety and hope and concern. They know there’s never a guarantee that they’ll wake up with all their friends still breathing. Still, Stiles doesn’t rush over to the hospital to try to help his best friend. Instead he latches onto Lydia’s shoulders and looks into her eyes. “Did you hear that, Lydia? He’s on his way to the hospital. You don’t have to scream.”

She swallows hard. “Tell that to the voices.”

He doesn’t even flinch. “Okay.” He leans in close to Lydia’s face and whispers to her forehead, “Shut up.”

Somehow, she laughs, and the knives in her head seem a little duller. “You’re such an idiot.”

He presses his forehead to hers like it’ll transfer some of her pain to him. “I’m sorry I didn’t answer my phone,” he whispers. “I was getting into my jeep and I tried to throw my phone into the passenger seat, but I was rushing so it ended up on the floor instead and then I couldn’t reach it when you called and I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” she promises, looking at the red marks on her legs. “You’re here now—wait.” She squints up at him. “How did you know to come if you couldn’t answer the phone?”

He shrugs. “It’s you, Lyds. They call it an emotional tether for a reason.”

She tilts her head. “Wait. Are you telling me you  _know_ when the voices turn up?”

“Sometimes.”

“How?”

“I…” He drums his fingers on his legs and won’t look her in the eye. “Sometimes I may or may not hear them too. I can’t  _understand_ them like you can, but I can hear them.” His fingers still. “Sorry.”

“ _Sorry_?” she splutters. “Stiles, you’re the one who has to put up with the same voices I do, and you’re not even a banshee. Why wouldn’t you tell me?”

He shrugs again. “I didn’t think it mattered.”

“What? Stiles, you have to put up with—”

“I don’t mind.” When she shakes her head, he strokes her cheeks with his thumbs. “No, I’m serious. It doesn’t bother me. I’m glad that I know so I can come help you.” She can’t hide the doubt on her face, so he looks hard into her eyes. “Hey, I’m with you, okay? Always. I don’t want you to feel guilty.”

Somehow, Lydia believes him. “Do you hear any voices right now?”

He furrows his eyebrows. “No.”

“Good.” She closes her eyes and leans into his touch. “Me neither.”


	2. "No one needs to know."

There are many things Stiles doesn’t like about college. He only gets to Skype Scott once a week and see him in person once a month. The parties are fun but full of people that he doesn’t care about. His required liberal arts core classes are boring as hell.

However, there are certain aspects of the college experience that make it infinitely better than high school, and one of those aspects is watching Lydia Martin barge into his dorm room and fling herself onto his bed. She’s still in the floral dress she wore to class, but she’s zipped one of his red hoodies over it. Stiles has no idea when she stole it.

“Why are you grinning?” she frowns, legs knocking against the side of his mattress. “It’s been a shitty day, Stiles. You’re not allowed to be happy.”

“Oh, sorry,” Stiles says, not bothering to change his expression. “Was it your chem professor again?”

Her eye roll is answer enough. “I don’t understand why he can’t just accept that he was wrong and give me the points back.”

“He’s just ashamed because he hasn’t yet figured out what I learned a long time ago.”

When she tilts her head to the side, her strawberry blond hair brushes the tops of her thighs. “And what is that, Stiles Stilinski?”

“You’re Lydia Martin,” he says simply. “No one else can compare to your genius. He’s just jealous because he isn’t going to win a Fields Medal one day.”

“I’m not going to get the Fields Medal if I can’t even pass Chem 101.”

“Lydia, even if he never gives you the points back, you’ll still have a B-plus in the class.”

“Do you hear yourself right now? B-pluses don’t win you Fields Medals.”

“Well, it’s irrelevant because you’re going to get the points back. Eventually. In the meantime, I know something that’ll cheer you up.” He wiggles his eyebrows at her.

“Oh, no. Oh no.  _Stiles_.”

“You know it’ll make you feel better!”

“Not after what happened last time!”

“Last time was  _great_ ,” Stiles counters. “Come on, Lydia! You don’t even have to feel guilty. We can do it as much as we want, and no one needs to know.”

He knows he’s worn her down when her eyes drift towards his mini-fridge. “Fine. But we are  _not_ marathoning Star Wars again. I have to study for my calculus test tomorrow.”

“Oh, we are  _so_ marathoning Star Wars again.” Stiles pulls two spoons out of his dresser, handing one to Lydia.

She wrinkles her nose. “That can’t be sanitary.”

“Hey! I washed them!” 

“They were in your underwear drawer.”

“I wash those too!” (He doesn’t mention  _when_ he washed any of them.)

“Oh, God.” Lydia wipes the spoon with the sleeve of his stolen red hoodie. “All right, Stiles. Bring on the ice cream.”

When Stiles pulls out a pint of Mint Chocolate Chip, Lydia doesn’t question it. After all, he knew what her favorite flavor was even before they started dating. He’d be a failure of a boyfriend if he didn’t keep it on hand at all times.

Lydia digs her spoon into the too-green ice cream and licks it clean, her eyelids fluttering shut as the cool flavor hits her tongue.

“See? I told you this was a good idea.”

“Maybe.” She scoops out another spoonful. “But we’re still not marathoning Star Wars.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my tumblr is stilestilikeslydia.tumblr.com if you want to follow me for some reason :)


	3. Lydia/Malia/Kira friendship with side Scott/Kira: "It could be worse."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They have to be happy and do normal teenage things SOMETIMES, right?

“Well, it could be worse,” Kira says diplomatically.

“How could it be worse?” Malia demands. “They’re beating us by forty points!”

“Only because I broke my wrist,” Lydia says, frowning at the cast on her hand, “and have to bowl with my left hand. Plus they have an extra person on their team.”

“Yeah, like that matters to them. They’re still gloating,” Malia growls as Mason scores another spare, gives Liam a high five, and does a stupid little dance in a circle, waving his hands in the air.

“Forty points isn’t  _that_  far behind,” Kira insists. “All we need are a couple of strikes and we’ll catch up.”

“Yeah, only Scott hasn’t missed a pin all night,” Malia complains. “How are we going to compete with that?”

That gives Lydia an idea. “Easy,” she says. “Kira. Distract him.”

“ _What_?” Kira’s eyes practically shoot out of her head. 

Malia brightens. “Yes! Oh, God, this ought to be good. I’ve been dreaming of this my entire life.”

“I—I—I can’t do that!” Kira splutters. “I don’t know how to be… _distracting_.”

Lydia bursts out laughing, something she hasn’t done in far too long. God, she’s forgotten what it’s like to live like this—engaging in simple, entertaining conversation with other girls like they aren’t expecting the end of the world to crash into Beacon Hills at any moment. If it wasn’t for Kira, she isn’t sure she ever would have remembered this feeling again. “Don’t worry, Kira, you don’t have to be  _seductive_ or anything,” she promises. “That’d probably confuse Scott more than distract him anyways.”

“Then what do I do?” Kira hisses. “His turn is next!”

“When you go up to bowl, trip and fall,” she suggests. “He’ll believe that.”

“Yeah, because I’m probably the only clumsy kitsune in the history of Japan,” Kira mutters.

“Exactly!” Malia says, not understanding that Kira viewed that as an insult.

“So then pretend that your ankle is sprained,” Lydia continues like neither of them have interrupted. “Scott’ll be so busy worrying about you that he won’t be able to concentrate on knocking down the pins.”

“Ooh, I like it,” Malia grins. “Kira, he’s getting up to bowl! You have to go  _now_.” With a suggestive wink, she pushes her into the lane.

“Scott!” Kira calls out unsteadily, pasting on a smile that’s too nervous for Lydia’s liking. If she doesn’t sell this… “Come here!”

He whips around mid-bowl, still hefting his massively heavy (stupid werewolf muscles) bowling ball in his hand. “What? Is something wrong?”

“No!” she claims. “I just wanted to say, uh— _ack_!“ 

Kira takes one step toward Scott and fake-slips. In one motion, her feet swing into the air, one bowling shoe flies off, and she topples onto the floor. In his shock, Scott drops his bowling ball into the lane, and it thuds into the gutter. He doesn’t even notice. “Kira!” he exclaims, rushing to his side. “Are you okay?”

Kira does such a good job of wincing that even Lydia is almost fooled. “I'm—ouch—I’m fine,” she promises. “Really. Go do your next throw.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, don’t worry about me. It doesn’t even hurt that much, seriously.”

Lydia gets an idea. “You finish your turn, Scott,” she says with an encouraging smile. “I’ll take a look at Kira’s ankle. I probably know more about treating sprains than you do, anyway.”

He rubs the back of his neck. “Yeah, you’re probably right.” He pushes himself to his feet and retrieves his bowling ball.

Lydia kneels at Kira’s side. “Hey, you’re actually okay, right?”

“Yeah.” She grins. “Was my fake fall really that good?”

“It was fantastic,” she says. “I’m going to poke your ankle now. When Scott’s about to swing his bowling ball, hiss in pain, okay?”

“Will that be loud enough to get his attention?”

“He’s a werewolf,” she shrugs. “He’ll notice. Ready?” She pokes her ankle, and right on cue, Kira sucks in a deep breath and flinches away from Lydia’s hand. Scott hears her, of course—Lydia would feel bad about taking advantage of his kind heart if their bowling score wasn’t at stake—and flings the ball in the air wildly, nearly denting the lane floor. Needless to say, he doesn’t hit a single pin.

“Dude, what the hell?” Stiles asks, but Scott’s already looking at Kira with warm brown puppy-dog eyes.

“Do you need to go to the hospital? How bad is your ankle, really?”

“I’m okay, really,” Kira insists.

“Um, it’s your turn now, Kira,” Malia interjects with false hesitance. “Do you want to go, or—?”

“I’ll go,” Kira says, using Lydia’s shoulder for support as she pushes herself to her feet. 

Scott holds out his hands awkwardly. “You really don’t have to—”

“I don’t want to hold up the game,” she says, eyes wide and innocent as she chooses a ball. Then, with a sudden laugh—Lydia didn’t know Kira had it in her to be this devious, honestly—she races forward and throws her ball with perfect precision, knocking down all the pins on her first try.

“What—but—you were—”

Lydia steps forward and gives Kira a high five with her good hand. “Only ten points behind now, thanks to the spares you got on your last two turns,” she grins. “Which team should be worried now?”

“But…” Scott shakes his head like he’s got water stuck in his ears. “Your ankle’s not really sprained?”

“Aw, Scott, you know what they say,” Lydia tells him, still looking up at the scoreboard with satisfaction.

“What?”

“Never trust a fox.”


	4. "Hey, have you seen the-? Oh."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this drabble doesn’t fit in the canon timeline at all? just pretend that this is set somewhere between Stiles and Lydia’s talk in the woods and Lydia bringing Parrish to the woods? Which i know makes no sense but let’s just say this is an AU in which more time passes between those events. idk. i don't know what i'm writing i have exams this week and nothing makes sense.

In retrospect, Lydia doesn’t know why she didn’t just call him. She hasn’t shown up unannounced at his house in months — not since he’s been avoiding her, not since Malia started living there. But she’s driving nearby when the radio announcer mentions a recent death, and Lydia knows instantly that it’s supernatural-related. It’s supernatural-related, and they hadn’t stopped it. Worse still,  _she hadn’t even felt it._ Nothing had tugged her forward until she arrived at the scene of a crime. Nothing had whispered in her ear, telling her that someone was going to die.

Normally, Lydia would be grateful for a decrease in the number of voices in her head — but she was born like this, so it’s not going away any time soon, and the only thing worse than having voices in her head would be having voices that don’t even tell her anything useful. That don’t even help her save anyone’s life. So for an instant, with that announcer’s voice still reverberating in her ears, it seems like the most natural thing for Lydia to change directions, pull into Stiles’s driveway, and brush past his dad when he answers the door. She pushes open his bedroom door without a second thought and says, “Hey, have you seen the—?”

And then she takes in the scene. Malia is lying on Stiles’s bed, highlighting a textbook and Stiles is fiddling with something at his desk. They’re not talking to each other at the moment, but that doesn’t mean Lydia doesn’t get an intense  _they’re-a-couple_  reality check. “Oh.”

She plans to just turn and leave, but then Stiles jerks upright and swivels around, staring at her. “Lydia? Is everything okay?”

She swallows hard. “Um. Yeah. Sorry to show up like this. I’ll just… go.”

“What? No.” Stiles stands up and takes a step toward her. “You know you can show up any time. What’s going on?”

Malia takes one look at them and jumps off the bed. “I’ve got, uh, stuff to do.” She walks out with one concerned glance in Lydia’s direction. Lydia barely even registers it.

“Sorry to interrupt,” she says after Malia’s gone.

He frowns. “Apologizing isn’t really your style, Lyds. Seriously, what’s wrong?”

She takes a deep breath and tells him. When she finishes, his frown is furnished by furrowed eyebrows. “You sound too freaked out for this to be a one-time thing,” he says. “Has this happened before?”

“I don’t know,” she says, some of her frustration leaking into her voice. “Maybe. Yes. Remember earlier today, when we were searching for the dead bodies Parrish was stealing and you didn’t understand why I couldn’t find them and I told you the banshee was having an off day?”

“Yeah.” He drums his fingers against his thigh. “You walked away from me.”

“Yeah.” She looks away. “Because I was pissed with myself, not with you. I haven’t felt like a banshee since the night Tracy killed her dad, and I don’t know why. And it’s kind of…” She tugs at her cardigan helplessly. “I don’t know. I don’t like it.”

“Why?”

For some reason, that one word makes Lydia lose control of everything she’s held together for weeks, months, years. “Because if I can’t even find the bodies, then what the hell am I good for? How the hell am I supposed to help this pack?”

“Whoa, what?” Stiles grabs her shoulders, steadying her, forcing her to look at him. “ _That’s_  what you’re worried about? Whether or not you’re _useful_?”

She frowns. When he says it like that, it makes her concerns seem so trivial. “Of course. I don’t want—”

“You don’t have to be a banshee to be useful, Lydia,” Stiles interrupts, still staring at her with an intensity she hasn’t seen for a while. “Did you forget that you’re a genius? I couldn’t figure out half of the shit I figure out without you.”

In that moment, with his hands still on her shoulders, Lydia forgets all about Malia and all the times Stiles has proven that he’s not interested in her anymore. And then she remembers, and she presses her lips together and looks away. “I’m not the one who always figures it out, though.”

“That’s not even a little bit true.” Stiles’s fingers are digging into her skin now, desperate to make her understand, but Lydia doesn’t mind. She’s never really minded. “Look, Lydia, we’ll figure out why this is happening. We’ll fix it. But even if you lost all your powers tomorrow, you would still be important to the pack. You’re worth a hell of a lot more to me than just your powers.”

He probably doesn’t say it intentionally. It probably doesn’t mean anything. But Lydia can’t help but notice that he doesn’t tell her, “You’re worth a hell of a lot more to the pack than just your powers.” Or even, “You’re worth more than your powers.” No, he specifically says that she’s worth more  _to him_  than that. And for now, that’s enough.


	5. Malia/Braeden: "Is there a reason you're naked in my bed?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for my friend who is femslash trash (her url is pansexual-malia on tumblr if that helps you understand) and also ships stydia and i love her for it.
> 
> despite the chapter title, there's no smut here - in case anyone's uncomfortable with smut. (i'm pretty much incapable of writing smut so you never have to worry about that with me haha.) also idk how large the age difference between malia and braeden is in canon but let's just say it's two years or less because large age differences between high schoolers and adults in romance is gross.
> 
> okay that's all i have to say. enjoy the chapter!

Braeden returns from the nearest grocery store to find Malia perched on the edge of her bed, struggling to pull off her tank top.

She stares.

“Um…”

“ _What_?” Malia snarls, eventually tearing the fabric off with sharp claws.

“Is there a reason you’re naked in my bed?”

“I’m not naked yet,” Malia says, tossing the ruined shirt to the floor. “Now are you going to help me or not?”

“Help you with wha—oh  _shit_.” There’s a bullet hole in Malia’s shoulder and thick dark blood dripping down her back.

“Yeah, I know,” Malia winces, trying and failing to look over her shoulder at the wound. “At least it looks like the bullet went all the way through. You don’t have to go digging around for it.”

“What happened?” Braeden demands, rushing into the bathroom and returning with her emergency kit. 

“I got shot.”

She rolls her eyes. “Yeah, but werewolves heal from shit like this.”

“Not when the bullets are coated in wolfsbane.”

“ _What_? Malia—”

“It’s fine, I’m fine. Just do that thing where you burn out the stuff and sew it up and I’ll be fine.”

Braeden frowns. "Malia, you shouldn’t take this lightly. Wolfsbane—”

“Is really bad, I know,” Malia says. A sudden spasm makes her shoulder twitch, and she grits her teeth. “That’s why you need to do the thing as soon as possible.”

“Okay.” She pulls a lighter out of her emergency kit (she’s no stranger to wolfsbane and ways to combat its effects), flicks it open, mutters an apology, and tilts the flame into Malia’s shoulder.

Malia  _howls_ , digging her claws into the bedsheets and jerking her head to the side. When Braeden has a moment to look up, she sees Malia’s eyes glowing blue.

But despite her tendency to use violence, Malia doesn’t turn on Braeden once. She shreds the bedsheets into pieces, sure, but that’s fine—they needed the bandages anyway. Her eyes never stop glowing, but Braeden blames that on the wolfsbane more than anything else. When she’s burned away the last of the yellow liquid oozing from Malia’s shoulder, her eyes turn back to their normal warm brown. “Thanks,” she says, sagging against Braeden a little. She tries not to acknowledge how nice it feels to have Malia’s head leaning on her shoulder. 

“Don’t thank me yet,” she says, reluctantly maneuvering Malia into an upright position again. “I still have to stitch you up.”

“Ah.” Malia makes a face. “Fun.”

Braeden hides a smile. “Seriously, though, how did this happen? I thought you were going to stay in here.” She hopes the talking will distract Malia from the pinch of a needle going into her skin.

And it does, at least a little. “I— _ouch—_ got hungry.”

“I was  _at the grocery store_!”

“Yeah, but I wanted fast food,” Malia says, her voice almost—but not quite—reaching a whine. “Unfortunately, my  _mom_  found me first.”

Braeden tugs the thread a little too sharply, and Malia winces. “The Desert Wolf is  _here_? Did she follow us?”

“Don’t know. I managed to chase her off, but not before she shot me.” She lets out a shuddering breath as Braeden finishes the last stitch and knots the thread. “Do you think she’ll come back?”

“I’d be more surprised if she didn’t,” Braeden admits, cutting the thread. “Fortunately, you’ve got me to protect you.”

When Malia smiles, Braeden’s heart aches in a way that it hasn’t since a certain Hale up and left her in the middle of the night with no more than a note. Not that she’d expected anything else from him, really. He’d had stuff to figure out. She hadn’t been able to help him figure that stuff out as well as they’d hoped. Of course he left. Braeden was okay with that.

That doesn’t mean she wants  _more_  feelings interfering with her work, especially when those feelings couldn’t possibly lead to anything. She knows Malia was in a relationship with Stiles until recently, which discourages her from making a move for more reasons than one. And Braeden doesn’t  _do_  the whole pining, unrequited attraction thing. It’s stupid and unproductive, so she bites her lip and tries not to think about how good Malia’s hair smells.

But then Malia buries her nose in the crook of Braeden’s neck and tiredly asks if she picked up anything worth eating at the store, and Braeden can’t help but wonder if her pining is really that unrequited.

After all, Malia  _is_  sitting on Braeden’s bed in nothing more than a bra and some unreasonably short shorts—and she seems perfectly happy to stay that way.


	6. Gate D-6: A Stydia Airport AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Hi there, can you help me find my gate? Oh shit oh no I’m sorry I thought you worked here. Oh? You’re lost too and looking for the same gate as me? Cool, let’s be lost together." A very short Stydia AU :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was the first Stydia fic I ever wrote that was even mildly in-character lol. And I just found it again so I figured I'd add it to this fic. Enjoy! :)

 

Stiles hefted his duffle bag strap higher on his shoulder and huffed out a breath, glaring at the Departures sign. “D-6?” he grumbled. “My gate is _’D-6’_?” _How the hell was he supposed to get there from freaking A-32?_

He spun around, searching for _some_ indication of where to go, and instead his eyes alighted on a woman standing at a nearby gate check. Immediately, Stiles twisted his bag so it wouldn’t bump against his side and took off, dodging children with Dora the Explorer suitcases and businessmen with matching briefcases. “Hi,” he breathed, skidding to a stop in front of the woman, “can you help me find my gate? Boarding’s starting in like a minute and I _cannot_ miss this flight and I… Oh, _shit_ , you don’t work here.”

The “woman” was actually about his age, 17 or so, but the confidence radiating off of her made her seem older. She raised her eyebrows and cocked her head to one side, which made her long, shiny, strawberry blond hair bounce. “What gave you that idea?” she said in a flat voice.

Stiles gulped. “I’m sorry, I don’t know why I thought you worked here, you’re dressed way too well for that—not that it’s airport people’s faults that they have to wear weird uniforms—but I really am sorry if I bothered you, it’s just that my gate’s _D-6_ and I have no _idea_ how to get there—”

“D-6?” she said, tilting her head even further. “That’s my gate too.”

Stiles’ eyebrows jumped into his hairline. “Really?”

“Yes,” she admitted, pursing her lips. “I’m here because I asked the person working here for directions, but she supposedly had to leave for a second while she dealt with some emergency, and now it’s been ten minutes and I’m starting to think that she’s not coming back.”

Looking at the girl in front of him, Stiles really couldn’t blame the gate check lady for running off. With the way she was tapping her stiletto against the floor and glaring at him, he sort of wanted to run away too. Instead, he cleared his throat and said, “Well, you’re probably right. But as long as you’re lost too, wanna be lost together?”

The girl crossed her arms. “I’m not _lost_ , I’d just _prefer_ to know _exactly_ where I’m going instead of going on a scavenger hunt.”

“Okay, sure, whatever, now let’s _go_ ,” Stiles insisted, tugging on her arm. “If we stand here any longer we’re _totally_ going to miss this flight.”

“No one said you had to wait for me,” the girl said, but he heard her heels click against the tile floor as she started walking.

Against his better judgment, Stiles grinned. “Well, I do,” he said. “You seem smart, so you’ll probably figure out where to go before I do. I plan on following you to the gate.”

“In order for you to follow me, I’d have to be ahead of you.”

“Oh. Right.” He let the girl stride in front of him and then added, “I’m Stiles, by the way.”

“I’m Lydia, not that it matters,” she said. “I think we have to take a shuttle train to get to T6, judging by that sign with the badly drawn symbol. And Stiles doesn’t sound like a real name.”

“It’s a _nickname_ ,” Stiles protested, “and it’s definitely real!”

Lydia didn’t respond, just pushed her way through a Chinese family and kept walking. By the time Stiles caught up with her, he was starting to think that this team-up-with-the-pretty-girl thing was a bad idea. After all, she’d been rude enough to insult his name.

There was no _way_ this would end well.


	7. Speed Dial

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Based on the request of an anon on tumblr: "Can you write a fic where stiles and Lydia are not dating and stiles finds out he is number one on Lydia's speed dial and make it cute and fluffy please!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idk how cute and fluffy this is because fluffy stydia is hard to keep in-character when their lives are such crap. but i tried. :)

Stiles doesn't mean to pry into the secrets of Lydia Martin's phone. As much as he'd like a moment inside Lydia's head, he would never invade her privacy like that. But they've just unveiled a mystery about Beacon Hills's newest villain, and they need to let Scott know right away, and Stiles's phone died on the way over, and Lydia is looking through books on the other side of the library. So it feels natural for him to reach over, pull her phone out of her purse, and call out, "Hey, Lydia, what's your passcode?"

"7-8-4-5," she says absently, rifling through a book. "Scott's number three on my speed dial, so you don't need to go through my contacts or anything."

"Like I need your speed dial," he scoffs. "I've known Scott's number since he got his first flip phone when he turned twelve."

"Okay." He's almost positive she's rolling her eyes, based on the tone of her voice. "I'm not doubting your levels of best friend-ness."

Stiles grins, picks up Lydia's phone, and punches in his best friend's number. It only takes a few moments for him to relay their new information to Scott and tell him to meet them at the library. It takes another minute for the full weight of Lydia's information to sink in. "Wait," he says, tapping the edge of Lydia's phone against the table. "If Scott's number three on your speed dial, who's one and two?"

Very deliberately, Lydia pauses halfway through flipping a page, glances up at Stiles, and says, "You had better not break my phone because you were banging it against a table."

"Oops. Sorry." He puts the phone gingerly back inside her purse, then shuffles over to her with his hands in his pockets. "But seriously, I could have just looked through your phone without your permission. You should be grateful—"

"That you were a decent human being?" Lydia interrupts without moving her eyes from the page. "Do you expect a prize for that?"

"Well, no," Stiles admits reluctantly, fidgeting with the zipper of his hoodie. "But come on, Lydia. You can tell me. It's not like I'm going to—"

Lydia slams her book shut. "Number two is Allison, okay?"

"Oh." Stiles wishes he had never asked. "Still?"

"I…" Lydia sighs and leans her head against the side of the bookshelf, cradling the book against her chest. "I couldn't bring myself to take her off."

"Oh," he says again, stupidly.

For a while, neither of them speak. Stiles thinks he doesn't have the right to say anything else, and they'll end up in silence until Scott shows up. But then Lydia says, "I probably should. But you know, I've already memorized where everyone fits in on my speed dial. Changing it now would just be impractical."

Stiles latches gratefully onto the change of subject. "Of course it would. Just out of curiosity, where do I fit in on your speed dial?"

He expects her to say something sarcastic, like, _What makes you think you even made the cut?_ But to his surprise, Lydia spends a moment putting the book back on the shelf and obviously considering his question. Then she says, without quite looking at him, "You're first."

Stiles doesn't even bother hiding the fact that his mouth drops open. "I'm _first_?"

"It's not a big deal," Lydia insists, crossing her arms. "You're the one who told me to call you first whenever I find a dead body. I figured putting you as number one would be the easiest way to make sure I did that."

If possible, Stiles's mouth drops further. "I've been first for more than a _year_?"

Lydia glares at him. "I swear, I'm going to change that as soon as I get home—"

"No!" he yelps. "I mean, it's just that you're first in my speed dial too."

"Really?" Lydia's eyebrows jerk upward. "I beat Scott?"

"I don't need Scott in my speed dial. I've got his number memorized, remember?" Stiles says, deciding not to mention that he has Lydia's number memorized too. "But yeah, he's always known that he was getting booted off number one as soon as I got the great Lydia Martin to give me her phone number." He tries to sound casual, like his heart doesn't still flip whenever he remembers that _Lydia Martin is a contact in his phone._ From the way she presses her lips together in a smile and looks down, he's pretty sure his act doesn't work.

"I beat your dad too?"

"Oh, I don't need him on speed dial," Stiles says, still pretending that this conversation doesn’t really matter. That this conversation isn’t changing absolutely _everything_. "If I ever have to talk to him, I can just call the police station."

Lydia tilts her head to the side, still looking at the ground. "And I beat Malia?"

 _Oh, God, this really is changing everything._ "I rarely need to talk to Malia," he admits. "But I… I _always_ need to talk to you, Lyds."

Lydia finally looks up at him, her eyes wide and surprised. "You do?"

Before he can answer, Scott bursts into the library, asking what else they've found. Stiles leans closer to Lydia and whispers, "We'll finish this conversation later," before giving Scott his full attention.

He's serious about that statement. They have no excuse  _not_ to finish this conversation later, anyway. Especially now that Stiles knows how easy it is for them to call each other.


	8. Actually Hopeless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> based on the prompt "we're wrapping presents together and you put a bow on your head and said you were my present forever oh my god why are you so cute." For hvlkbvster!

Lydia still can’t quite believe that she’s cross-legged on Stiles Stilinski’s floor right now, wrapping his Christmas presents with him. She’d gotten a frantic call from him about an hour ago, pleading for her help, and he’d sounded so panicked that she’d rushed over immediately. She hadn’t expected his panic to be about  _Christmas wrapping_ … but once she saw his pleading expression, she couldn’t bring herself to leave. Besides, her mom wasn’t home, and Stiles had promised to cook her dinner in exchange for her help. Lydia’s culinary skills extended to opening granola bars, burning canned soup, and ordering Thai food. This was the better option.

“Pass me the tape, Lydia?” Stiles tries to ask, but with his teeth clamped around the ribbon he’s trying to hold in place, it comes out more like, “Pmm mum tup, Wydia?”

She spares a moment to give him a withering glance before spinning the roll of tape across the floor to him and putting the finishing touches on the flawlessly-wrapped package in her hands. “You are actually hopeless,” she informs him, slapping a blank tag under her bow at a precise 45-degree angle. “Who is this one for?”

“My dad,” he answers, having finally given up on the ribbon. “But you should address it ‘To: The Sheriff. From: The Delinquent.’ Make sure you capitalize every word and put periods after ‘Sheriff’ and ‘Delinquent.’”

Lydia throws the pen at him and sends the package across the floor as well. “If you’re going to make dumb jokes on gift tags, make them with your own handwriting.”

He just laughs, which is even more infuriating. Then he sees the present she’s reaching for next, and his eyes widen. “No!” he yelps. “You can’t wrap that one!” He sprawls on the ground and stretches out his right arm, tugging the package over to his pile before Lydia can touch it.

“Why?” she asks, raising her eyebrows. “Is it for me?”

“Um, no. It’s for Scott.”

“Oh, really.” She taps her fingers against her thigh. “Then why can’t I wrap it?”

“Because I’ve wrapped his presents with Star Wars paper  _every year_  since we were seven,” he explains. “I keep hoping that one year he’ll take the hint and _watch the freaking movies_.”

“And how’s that working out for you?”

“Terribly,” he grumbles. “But I’ve got  _The Force Awakens_ paper this year, so maybe he’ll think the new movie looks interesting enough that he’ll watch all the others. Or at least the original trilogy.”

“Good luck with that.” She takes a hideously neon Hawaiian shirt out of the to-be-wrapped pile and pulls the classiest wrapping paper towards herself, since she’s 90% sure that this is a gag gift remarking on Stiles’s dad’s fashion sense. “I hope you’re not going to wrap my presents with Star Wars paper too. They’d clash with everything else under my tree.”

Stiles frowns at her. “What? You actually think I’m getting you something?”

Something cold and hard settles at the bottom of Lydia’s stomach. She knows Stiles is probably finished with loving her—after all, he did date a werecoyote for over six months, even if that relationship ended a long time ago—but they’re still  _friends_. At least, she hopes they’re friends, seeing as she’s sitting on his floor and wrapping his presents. And friends get each other presents. Sometimes even  _nice_ presents. That’s not weird… right?

Vaguely, Lydia recognizes that it’s been too long since Stiles spoke, and she clears her throat and busies herself with sizing up how much wrapping paper she’ll need for the shirt. “I mean, you even got Mason a mug that says ‘my best friend’s a werewolf,’” she says cautiously, “because you wanted to pass down your legacy or something. I figured I was worth a mug.”

"Oh, hell no," he says. "After how much money I spent on your birthday present sophomore year? I'm not doing that again."

Lydia flinches. Just a little, but it's enough to rip the paper in her hands, creating a long, jagged tear that's basically ruined her ten-year streak of perfect wrapping.  She clears her throat and tapes up the tear like nothing's wrong. "Oh," she says. "That makes sense."

There's silence for a moment, and then Stiles says, "But that's because I have something _much_ better for you this year. The best presents are the ones that keep on giving. Right, Lyds?"

Lydia folds a corner of the paper over and tapes it in place, keeping her eyes fixed firmly on the shirt. "Sure, Stiles."

"So," he says, "I got you this instead!"

Finally, sighing, Lydia looks up from that hideous shirt—and Stiles has balanced five bows precariously on his dumb gelled hair, along with one on each shoulder.

She frowns slightly. "What are you doing?"

"I'm your present this year!"

Lydia just stares at him, lips slightly parted, and Stiles starts to fidget. He pulls off one of the bows on his shoulder, flicks at a loop with his fingers, takes a deep breath, and blurts out, "And, um, that doesn't have to be romantic or anything. Like, I'll cook you dinner for like a week so you don't have to eat burned soup, and I'll finally pay back all the gas money I owe you for driving me around while my jeep was basically blue scrap metal, and I'll do your laundry because I know you don't know how, and—"

"But could it be romantic?" she asks, raising her eyebrows.

He chokes on his words. "Uh, what?"

"What if I want it to be romantic?"

He gapes at her. "I… really?"

Lydia decides he's suffered enough for making her think he didn't care about her. "You are actually hopeless," she says again, and then she scoots forward, grabs his shirt collar, and pulls him towards her. Bows tumble off his head when he leans in for a kiss, and one lands on her expensive Gucci purse and sticks, and Stiles's leg does this little involuntary twitch that kicks one of the presents into the tape dispenser, leaving it with tiny, crooked holes, but Lydia doesn't actually care. His lips are soft.

"I can't believe you did that," she says, only slightly breathless, after they pull apart. "That was extremely stupid, even for you. I thought you didn't want to give me anything."

He winces. "I figured… it's almost Christmas, right? It's the best time for spontaneous gestures."

She snorts. "And to think I was going to spend money on you."

"Well, I did actually buy you Christmas presents," he says reluctantly. "This was just, like… a pickup line. One that obviously went terribly."

She presses her lips together in a smile and picks up the last bow in his hair, turning it over in her hands. "I don't know. It could have been worse. Will you still cook me dinner for a week?"

He licks his lips. "Uh… sure. If you want."

"Okay, cool. They can be dates, then. That's _actually_ a good Christmas present."

With that, Lydia plops the bow in her hair instead and goes back to wrapping the presents that Stiles has no chance of making halfway presentable. She teases him about his subpar skills and continues to hog the tape dispenser. But she can't quite keep her smile off her face.


	9. i ain't gonna make it myself

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm taking requests on my tumblr right now for headcanons/drabbles based on songs or song lyrics. This request is based on the song "Can You Hold Me" by NF, specifically these lyrics:
> 
> Just wrap me in your arms, in your arms  
> I don’t wanna be nowhere else  
> Take me from the dark, from the dark  
> I ain’t gonna make it myself  
> Put your arms around me  
> Put your arms around me  
> Let your love surround me  
> I am lost  
> I am lost
> 
> If I ain’t got you here  
> If I ain’t got you, I ain’t got nothing at all
> 
> Can you hold me?

When Lydia wakes up screaming, her hands dial Stiles’s number before she even processes what they’re doing. They knew what her dream meant before she did.

“Lydia?” His voice peaks at the end of her name, concern echoing through the receiver. It almost makes her laugh.

“Stiles.”

“Lydia,” he says again. “Is something wrong?”

She can’t help but be amazed by his persistent ability to shut off his own emotions for her sake. Amazed, and more than a little concerned. “I’m coming over,” she says.

“Are you sure?” His voice tilts down at the end, the tiniest of inflections, and Lydia can tell that he’s frowning. She wonders when she started to know him so well. “I can come to you if you need me.”

“I’m not coming over for _myself_ ,” she scoffs. “I’m coming for you.” Then she hangs up before he can protest.

Within minutes, she’s stepping out of her car and onto his porch. Stiles opens his front door and comes outside, squinting at her in confusion. “Why are you coming over for me?” he asks without preamble. “Is it a banshee thing?”

She shakes her head. “It’s an emotional tether thing,” she says carefully, watching Stiles’s eyes to gauge his reaction. “I felt… What happened tonight, Stiles?”

He tenses. “Nothing—”

“Don’t even try to lie to me,” she interrupts, narrowing her eyes. “What’s going on?”

“It’s not important,” he insists, but she can see him crumbling in front of her—the tension in his shoulders tilting unevenly, the light in his eyes splintering in the shadow of his house. She steps forward and takes his hand, and that’s all it takes for him to shatter.

“It’s just… _so much_  has happened in the last year, Lyds,” he says, his shoulders slumping. “I’ve done things that I couldn’t even fathom as a sophomore—crossed lines that I never would have imagined I’d cross—and I’ve failed so many times that I just… is it even possible for someone like me to come back from something like that?”

He looks at her with wide eyes—the kind of open, vulnerable expression that he only lets her see when he thinks she’s dying—and she almost shatters too. “You can,” she promises, matching the vulnerability in his eyes with briskness. If she shatters too, no one will be left to pick up their pieces. “You will. What can I do?”

She can see confusion instead of pain start to spread across his face. It’s progress. “I… what?”

“What do you need me to do?” She can see dark circles underneath his eyes, and she forgets that they used to have boundaries. “I know you aren’t sleeping. Would it…? I can spend the night.”

“What?” he repeats, staring at her like she’s from another planet. “You would… you would do that for me?”

She almost doesn’t answer, but she’s put too much out in the open to stop now. “Stiles, I have yet to figure out something I wouldn’t do for you.”

“But… I know what they did to you at Eichen. You aren’t sleeping either.” His eyes search hers with the same concern she feels for him. It shouldn’t be possible, she thinks, that two broken people could still worry so much about the brokenness of each other. Then again, they’ve stretched the bounds of what’s possible more times than Lydia can remember. It shouldn’t surprise her that they’ve stretched this too.

“So maybe…” She swallows hard. “So maybe spending the night here would help me, too.”

He blinks. “Okay, then.” He opens the front door and lets her in first before shutting it behind him.

Upstairs, Lydia curls into Stiles, and he wraps his arms around her. Just before she falls asleep, she hears him murmur her name against her hair. It’s a whisper of gratitude, a moment of relief, three syllables of bliss. In that moment, Lydia knows that he is hers, and she is his.

When the sunlight peeks through the cracks in his curtains tomorrow morning, she hopes they will still be each other’s.


	10. the world won't work right if you're not in it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspiration = a cover of "I Walk the Line" by Halsey. 
> 
> Especially the random noises at the beginning of this song that happen before the piano starts, which just fit the vibe of this drabble really well, and also the lyrics “Yes, I’ll admit that I’m a fool for you/Because you’re mine, I walk the line.”

When an unidentified supernatural monster barrels into the road to try to keep Stiles from getting through, he keeps his foot on the gas pedal until the creature jumps to the side. He has no idea what type of monster it is, really — doesn’t even know if it’s capable of conscious thought or self-preservation instincts — but that isn’t enough to make him stop or swerve around it. He refuses to slow down for even a fraction of a second. If the monster hadn’t moved, he would have rammed into it without hesitation, destroying the monster and his precious jeep’s bumper in the process. Even Roscoe doesn’t matter when Lydia Martin is in danger.

As he speeds along the deserted road, his headlights blaring under the light of the full moon, his mind is clearer than it has been since the moment Lydia Martin pressed her lips to his on a cold locker room floor. The last time her life was at risk, his thoughts had whirred in his desperation to get her to safety. He’d spent too long planning, trying to account for every possible surprise, and Valack had drilled a hole in Lydia’s head while Stiles had been examining his board. Tonight, Stiles doesn’t waste his energy on plans. He’s not going to be too late to save her this time.

Before long, Stiles arrives at the abandoned building where the creatures they know so little about have established their base. He doesn’t know what they want from Beacon Hills. He doesn’t know their full range of abilities, or even if there’s a human buried underneath each monster’s layer of fur. His pack only discovered their existence two days ago, so Stiles hasn’t had time to research them yet. But tonight, his lack of knowledge can’t keep him from driving Roscoe through the flimsy wooden door blocking him from Lydia Martin. It can’t keep him from climbing out of Roscoe, swinging his aluminum bat into the back of a random monster’s head, and continuing on before it even has time to crumple to the floor. He doesn’t stop moving until he steps through a doorway and sees Lydia Martin strapped to a chair with her mouth taped shut and a monster’s claws at her throat.

“Let her go,” he growls, hefting his bat. 

“Let go of your bat,” the monster growls just as strongly. So this one, at least, is capable of conscious thought. 

Stiles barely registers this new information. Lydia doesn’t seem particularly afraid. She’s looking at him with suspicious, searching eyes, trying to send him a message that he can’t hear over the roar of blood in his ears. These things, he notices.

“Okay, okay,” Stiles concedes quickly, raising his hands up high and letting his voice shake. “Just… don’t hurt her.”

“Put down your bat.”

“Of course.” Stiles flicks his fingers open all at once, and the bat clatters loudly when it hits the concrete floor. The monster’s heightened hearing is a disadvantage for once. It flinches — just for an instant, but an instant is enough. By the time it looks up again, Stiles is pointing a gun (his father’s backup gun, the one he keeps in a safe with Stiles’s mother’s birthday as the combination, the one he doesn’t know Stiles stole when he heard that Lydia was in danger in Eichen House) at the monster’s head. 

“I put down my bat,” he says. “Now let her go.” His voice isn’t shaking anymore. 

The monster narrows its eyes and presses one claw a little harder on Lydia’s throat, drawing blood. Stiles flicks off the safety and puts his finger on the trigger. “Last chance,” he says, “or I swear to God I’ll shoo—”

But then he sees Lydia shake her head. 

Careful, deliberate, even though it drives the monster’s claw a little deeper into her neck. Her eyes are burning into his, insistent, and Stiles finally gets her message. With one last look at the monster’s eyes, he lowers his arm and shoots both of its knees instead.

The impact is almost just as effective. The monster goes down immediately, howling, and Stiles covers the distance between him and Lydia Martin in a matter of seconds. Hands that had punched in the combination to his father’s safe, yanked out a pin that killed a man, pulled the trigger on a stolen gun, are careful as they untie her and take the tape off her mouth. When she’s free, the first thing she does is scold him.

“What were you _thinking_ , Stiles?” she hisses, looking at the monster still writhing on the floor. “You were aiming at its head!”

“It was going to kill you, Lydia,” he says with a frown, helping her to her feet. “Now it’s howling and letting its friends know where we are.”

“They heard the gunshots anyway,” she says, pulling her hand out of his. He tries not to let it sting. “Stiles, that wouldn’t have been self-defense.”

“It was to save you,” he says. “That’s more important than self-defense.”

“No, it’s not!” she gasps immediately, horrified.

“It is,” he insists. “The world won’t work right if you’re not in it.”

Lydia clenches her fists. Her knuckles turn so white that the bruises on her wrists stand out, angry dark blotches framed by pale skin and a pink sweater. “Stiles, you can’t think like that.” She uncurls her fingers just long enough to grab onto his arms, forcing him to keep his eyes on hers. “You can’t do something like that, ever. There are some lines you cannot cross. I won’t let you cross them.”

Stiles thinks about telling her. He wonders what she would do if he told her what he’d figured out way back in sophomore year and confirmed when they were juniors. He wonders if it would change anything, or if she already knows. But then another monster charges in, heading straight for Lydia, and Stiles has to shoot in the thigh. After that, they run towards Roscoe, leaving behind the two monsters nursing non-fatal bullet wounds, and Stiles hopes that Lydia will forget to talk to him about this later. 

He doesn’t want to have to admit that there’s no line he wouldn’t cross for Lydia Martin.


End file.
